FULLY ARMED

As a wrestler and a football player, Adam Wilson had been brought up to be tough, so he naturally shrugged off the constant pain in his right arm.

But he learned what tough was really all about in the summer of 2004, when a doctor delivered the words that can bring the strongest to their knees: “You have cancer.”

That pain in his arm was caused by chondrosarcoma, a rare bone cancer that cannot be treated with radiation or chemotherapy, so things became even tougher when a decision had to be made about a treatment.

His options were to have the tumor scraped out or to have his humerus -- the bone in the upper arm -- removed and replaced with a prosthetic rod.

Despite the risk of the cancer returning, Wilson chose the former because it offered him a chance to return to wrestling. Eighteen months later, he is ready to compete in the state championships that begin Friday at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield.

Wilson, a junior at Santa Maria Righetti High, is on a 20-match winning streak and is ranked No. 3 in the state at his weight class, according to the California Wrestler newsletter. He won the Southern Section Masters championship at 171 pounds last weekend.

“It’s pretty amazing when you think about it,” Wilson said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever play sports again, so I’m feeling pretty blessed just to be back in sports, let alone to be where I am right now.”

During the operation, doctors removed a nine centimeter by four centimeter mass and replaced it with a synthetic bone substance. His natural bone began to grow around it and the strength in his arm soon returned.

There is still the risk of the cancer returning. Doctors told Wilson that if it doesn’t within five years, it probably wouldn’t, and if his performance on the mat is any indication, he is in full remission.

Wilson pinned three of five opponents en route to the Southern Section Northern Division title, then recorded pins in three of his four victories to win the Masters title. In the Masters championship match, Wilson trailed, 7-2, before he turned Parker Barba of Redlands on his back and pinned him in the second period.

Wilson played receiver and defensive back for the football team last fall and was Righetti’s leading receiver and tackler. He started the wrestling season rusty after taking a year off while recovering from surgery, but he is 46-5 this season and hasn’t lost since Jan. 7.

“At first we were tentative with him and he was tentative on the mat because none of us knew what to expect,” Coach Dutch Van Patten said. “We babied him a little and finally he just said, ‘I’m going to treat myself like nothing happened and I want you to do the same.’ ”

That attitude has transformed his style. He is now more aggressive and willing to take chances.

“He’s not afraid to get caught in a bad position,” Van Patten said. “His attitude is, ‘I fought cancer and beat it, what can some other wrestler do to me?’ He has confidence that he can get out of anything.”

Wilson said he had lived with pain in his right arm for as long as he could remember, but doctors never found anything.

By the time he reached high school, the pain was so bad that Wilson could barely work out with his right arm and it began to weaken. Still, he fought through it and, as a freshman, qualified for the state championships at 140 pounds by finishing seventh at the Masters.

He was knocked out of the state finals in the third round, going 1-2, but it turns out just getting there was an accomplishment.

“He was wrestling pretty much with one arm,” said Wilson’s father, Gary, an assistant wrestling coach. “It had atrophied and he had pretty much no strength in it.”

The summer after his freshman year, Wilson was goofing around on a skateboard with friends when they got the idea to pull each other behind a car.

During Wilson’s turn, he lost control, fell off the skateboard and hit the pavement. The blow momentarily knocked him unconscious but more importantly, it dislocated his left shoulder.

That injury proved fateful because during treatment doctors noticed the difference between the size and strength of his arms and decided to do some testing. They found a mass in his upper right arm.

Turns out the dangerous game he had been playing with his friends could have killed him, but it ended up saving his life.

“At first I was really, really scared,” Wilson said. “[Cancer] isn’t really something you expect to hear when you’re my age. I didn’t know anything about it.”

Now Wilson approaches life with a nothing-to-lose attitude that has spilled onto the wrestling mat.

“Missing that year made me want to go out and tear it up this year,” he said.

With that in mind, Wilson set his sights high. His goals included league, division, Masters and state titles. He has checked them off one by one during the last month and has only one to go.

His weight class, however, features many tough competitors. Louis Bland of Modesto Central Catholic won the 152-pound state title last year as a freshman and is the top-ranked wrestler at 171 pounds this year. Hunter Collins of Gilroy is ranked No. 2 and handed Wilson his last loss, 7-3, in the finals of the Clovis Doc Buchanan tournament.

Still, Wilson isn’t worried.

“I feel like I’m peaking right now,” he said. “What I’ve been through has made me appreciate where I’m at and the opportunity I have. I feel like I have nothing to lose.”